


To The Slowing Of The Shadow

by Elsajeni



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, End of the World, Gen, Nothing good is happening here, Sauron Wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 07:32:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsajeni/pseuds/Elsajeni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chance meeting between old friends, in the last dark days of the world.</p>
<p>Written for a prompt requesting "the AU where Frodo left the Shire with Sam and the Ring and was <em>immediately</em> snagged by a passing Nazgul and taken to Mordor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Slowing Of The Shadow

He is riding east, with what men he can gather following behind. There are fewer of them than he might have hoped — the days are growing dark already, and the nights cold and full of the howling of wolves, and some of those he had counted among his friends refuse to leave their homes, their families. Others, perhaps, would have come, had he been able to offer any hope, any answer when they asked what they were riding toward.

Those who do follow him are the ones who did not ask — who looked to the eastern sky, and saw the answer for themselves, and gave only a grim nod as they mounted up alongside him.

_I could ask for more men_ , he thinks, staring into the campfire without seeing it, _but I could not ask for better_.

“Have you any leaf to spare?” a voice comes from beside him, and Aragorn startles — he has been sitting by the fire for the greater part of the night, and it has been several hours since any other of his party has stirred. He turns, one hand dropping to his belt (and he isn’t sure himself whether he means to reach for his leaf-pouch or for his knife), and his eyes light on the newcomer: an old man, bent and frail and grey, supporting himself by a wooden staff and peering at the fire from under a wide-brimmed hat.

There is a moment’s uncertainty, and then something clicks and he knows — of _course_ he knows — the Grey Pilgrim, and even in these dire times, he cannot help but smile at such a reunion. He beckons the old man to sit, and offers him the leaf-pouch, and as they both are filling their pipes Aragorn says, “My old friend. Do you ride for the East?”

“I do,” Gandalf says, “though what I hope to do there I cannot say.” There is something different in his voice and in his figure — the reason, perhaps, that Aragorn did not recognize him at once, in spite of threescore years of friendship — but he cannot quite place what it is.

He does not remark on the change, or ask after it. Instead he looks into the fire for a long while, worrying his pipe-stem between his teeth, and then says, “I am sorry. For all our fates, and for the hobbit’s in particular — you spoke of him with great fondness.”

“I fear he has suffered greatly for the mistake of befriending a wizard.” Gandalf’s voice is bitter, and he smokes without his usual enthusiasm, producing only grey clouds where normally there would be a riot of colorful rings.

“Suffering that you trusted me to spare him.” Aragorn sighs, and stretches his legs out before him, warming his feet on the stones encircling the fire. “I thought it best to wait in Bree, and not to stir up gossip among the hobbits, and now I wish every moment that I had not let the wagging of their tongues keep me away. If I had realized the true extent of the danger—”

“If an old fool had _told_ you the true extent of the danger, you mean,” Gandalf says, and suddenly Aragorn sees it — the source of his sense that something about the wizard has changed. It is the bend in his back, and the crack in his voice; the signifiers of age that he has always put on and off like a costume, now settled in to stay.

“You _are_ old,” he says, too surprised by the realization to put it more tactfully. “You have never been old — or, I should say, you have always been old in the way that a forest might be, or a mountain. Now you grow old as a man does.”

Gandalf nods, and sets his pipe down on the ground, lies back on the grass as if he intends to sleep here, beside the campfire. “Yes,” he says, and his breath makes a thin cloud in the cold night air. “I am riding east to the end of my life; I know that, and it has begun to show in me.”

“ _We_ are riding east,” Aragorn corrects him, “to the slowing of the Shadow. To hold back the ends of our lives, as long as we may.”

“As long as we may,” Gandalf agrees, and folds his hands behind his head. “I am glad to have met you again, Aragorn, before we come to that end.” Then he closes his eyes, and seems to sleep.

Aragorn sits a while longer, watching the fire and finishing his pipe. Then he sighs and says, “And I you, Mithrandir,” and goes to lay out his bedroll.

When he wakes in the morning, the wizard is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I get for asking my husband for fic prompts. Originally posted [here](http://meressel.tumblr.com/post/49576932821/my-husband-ladies-and-gentlemen-he-later) on my writing blog.


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